Sens. Michael Baumgartner (nay) and Steve Litzow (yea) cracking up during Litzow's light moment on Tuesday night.

There were certainly a lot of moving, important, and serious speeches on Wednesday evening when the state Senate voted 28-21 to pass gay marriage. In particular, I'd point to Sen. Kevin Ranker's (D-40) speech about his gay father, Sen. Debbie Regala's (D-27) speech about marrying her husband, who's Filipino, one year after the US Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage in 1967, and Sen. Steve Hobbs' (D-44) speech about honoring his gay military colleagues. (Watch the debate here .) Stranger writer Eli Sanders, who's gay, was particularly moved by Sen. Cheryl Pflug's (R-5) speech about American History.

(Interestingly, Regala's marriage is a white/Asian combo. If gay bill sponsor Sen. Ed Murray (D-43)—whose partner is Asian—is finally able to marry in December after the likely referendum vote, Regala's marriage would dovetail with Murray's marriage to Michael Shiosaki with historical resonance. [pullquote]The most memorable moments on Tuesday night were the humorous ones. Yes, the gay marriage vote was a big deal, but more importantly—it wasn't. [/pullquote]

But momentous occasions aside, what struck me most about Wednesday night's debate was that there hardly was a debate. (I'll never forget Seattle Times reporter Andrew Garber sitting next to me saying with some relief "here we go" when one of the unfriendly amendments came up, evidently hoping for some drama to cover. It never quite came.) Really, the most memorable moments (one of which was memorialized in the New York Time's brief coverage of the vote) were the humorous ones.

There was Sen. Lisa Brown's (D-3) joke about her younger gay sister getting married before her; Sen. Steve Litzow's (R-41) joke about how the bill—as good as it was—wasn't good enough to guarantee that gay couples would stay together (that's the joke that the NYT quoted and concluded its story with); and Sen. Margarita Prentice's (D-11) jibe at the speeches themselves: “I'm ready to vote," she began. "We’ve all had our say, but I think we’ve just about wrapped it up,” she quipped to big laughs.

That last comment ushered in the vote. Think about that. A few minutes before a supposedly contentious and historic vote, both sides of the chambers were laughing together. And it wasn't nervous chortling to relieve a tense situation. It was a hearty outburst in what seemed like everyday business on the floor. That would not have been possible during the gay civil rights bill debate in 2006, nor during the original domestic partnership debate in 2007, which went for hours as opposed to Tuesday's brief proceedings, which didn't even go 90 minutes.

And the GOP did not gum up the debate with monkey wrench amendments—there were only 11 amendments, seven of which were friendly and adopted. And the four that were rejected—including one that called for a referendum—were dispensed without much heat.

The significance of the bipartisan laughter and ultimately the bipartisan vote is this: This wasn't a historic vote in the sense that we usually mean. Yes, lives will improve immeasurably if the law stands. And Washington State will be a far more just place. But the vote itself seemed more like mom and dad's decision to wait until you're 12 to tell you Santa Claus doesn't exist. This was overdue. And everyone, even the Republicans with their pro-forma handful of amendments, seemed as if they were simply role playing, going through the motions, almost blasé about the fact that the bill would pass.

I think everyone knew that outsized drama would have been inappropriate. It wouldn't have matched the actual occasion because frankly, this was a done deal—28-21 (with nearly 20 percent of the Republican caucus voting for it)—before the "debate" got underway. With Washington following on the heels of six other states that have already approved same-sex marriage at this point, it was also a done deal in more ways than having the votes locked up in advance.

Yes, Wednesday night was a big deal, but, more importantly, it wasn't.